The Email

The Email

Last fall both my husband and I received an email from our adoption agency. The email started something like this, “I know it is five, but we thought of you guys. Let us know as soon as possible.” Attached was a file with the names, ages, and a small blurb about each child. I sat frozen, staring at the monitor at my teacher desk in my classroom while the high school teenagers carried out their task of discussing plot elements of Ray Bradbury’s There Will Come Soft Rains.

Five? FIVE? Ha! Right. I was stretching it trying to convince Robert to consider three. There was no way he would even think about five. I closed the email, refocused, stood and continued on with my daily duties as a high school English teacher.
As I was driving on the commute home, Robert asked me what I thought about the email. “What email?” I asked sincerely.
“From Allison.” He looked at me in surprise. “About the kids.”
“Oh. Yeah. I saw it.”
“What did you think?”
“Robert, you won’t even consider three, much less five. I didn’t read it.”
“You didn’t?”
And for a moment, I wondered why I didn’t read it. “Will you read it to me?”
After Robert read the email and description of the children, we discussed the impossible. Our concerns with adopting a sibling group were normal; we wanted to provide for our children and give them opportunities to be successful academically, spiritually, athletically, musically, and/or any way that would be specifically beneficial to their needs and/or talents. We also needed a bigger vehicle no matter how many children we agreed on adopting.
Were we really considering five kids?
At that moment a heavy weigh+t of Catholic guilt came upon me. Okay, maybe it was the Holy Spirit. Regardless, there was one question that kept surfacing: Who were we to question God?
What if God’s plan was for these to be our children? What if we said no? I shared my thoughts with Robert. My husband was experiencing the same calling. Suddenly, we both were very humbled. We didn’t know how we would be able to provide for them, we didn’t know how we would be able to transport them, and we didn’t know how God thought we were ready for five kids. All we knew at that moment in our Monte Carlo on our commute home was that we were suppose to say yes to God. All we knew was to trust in God to provide for our needs. His grace knows no bounds.
***Daphne Pesina is a high school English teacher in Texas. She will be adding more family adventures to her blog soon.***